J D Knauer

The Devil's Heat J D Knauer

THE DEVIL'S HEAT, a ThrillerRenowned racecar driver Josh Taggart needs a win at this charity race near his Illinois hometown, hoping to turn around the bad luck he had at Daytona. That he destroyed a raw cocaine shipment hidden in his car's radiator brings ruin to his life when he ignores threats that he compensate drug and pornography lords their half-million-dollar investment. Peoria City Police Officer Skip Montez and temporary partner County Sheriff's Detective Nick Rasso are undercover at the track where their missing teen investigation crosses paths with a drug deal gone bad and a kid with his gut slashed open. Taggart connects the dots to why the kid was cut, but he has a race to run and no time to confer with Office Montez at the ambulance where the kid is bleeding out. He knows revenge found him as his steering wheel comes apart running too high and fast into a muddy corner. In the hospital, Taggart receives a note threatening his mother's kidnapping if he doesn't pay for the lost cocaine. Monies to cover the shipment were "borrowed" from St. Mary's Cathedral coffers by the drug lords' childhood priest and must be put back before the head priest returns from Rome. Taggart ensures his mother's safety, then relaxes his guard under the spell of Ashley James, a family friend, as they both know it's wrong but are uncontrollably attracted to one another. Ashley is mistakenly kidnapped under his nose, igniting a race through hell for them both. The drug lord's daughter, Crystal Galena, is a mature woman addicted to steamy lust and mind-bending drugs. She has no qualms dispensing revenge and even murder, especially to that James woman who was screwing husband Dr. Tom Galena...until his clinic was threatened. Crystal's reluctant co-conspirator is the pretentious, child-molesting old priest, Bellardinini, from Italy. Father Dini, as he is called, still hears and obeys, via his drug-addled imagination, the orders of his lover, Mussolini.

Taggart rescues Ashley from a tortuous capture only to lose her once again. As he races from a vicious murder scene in Peoria to Italy where the killers have Ashley, he confides to his friend and ally, Father Pauletti, that he will kill to win this heat-race with the devil.